


They Say That He Kissed a Serpent

by SanSanFanFan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: After the Ritz, Ancient History, First Kiss, London's Embankment, M/M, Wings are awesome, drunk and happy, drunk and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 13:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19200169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanSanFanFan/pseuds/SanSanFanFan
Summary: After the Ritz, Crowley and Aziraphale take a drunken meander about London and end up in memories before Aziraphale decides to be bold.A little fic gift for https://icestorming.tumblr.com/ as thanks for their amazing Ineffable Husbands comics :D





	They Say That He Kissed a Serpent

Eventually, there is a man with a vacuum appliance throwing them stern glances as he begins to push the device about, and they realise they really will have to move on. The evening – the night – dining at the Ritz has been everything Aziraphale could have hoped for in a celebration of the world not ending and of them not being killed off by their own sides. He has eaten more courses than he can count, nattered away merrily with his friend, and sunk quite a few bottles of very fine wine, champagne, and even some port to round things off nicely with the cheese course. He’s a bit drunk, happy, and desperate that the night will not end _just_ yet.

Outside, Crowley leans casually against one of the columns of the arcade at the entrance as Aziraphale wobbles over to him, fingers twisting in his waistcoat pocket for a tarnished silver watch he so very much wants to ignore.

“None of that, angel. Its early. Let’s go somewhere else?” Crowley’s voice is thick with all the wine, and the angel wonders if he’s leaning against the Ritz for support, rather than for how cool it makes him look. He does look ‘cool’ though-

He interrupts his own thought with a question, “What do humans do at this time of night?”

Crowley looks about, locking onto a few late-night revellers heading up the street towards Picadilly Circus. “Drink some more. Dance badly. Vomit on the night bus?”

“Ah well, we could drink some more, but unless you know somewhere where I can gavotte-”

Crowley smirks, “And I don’t much fancy vomiting on the night bus. Especially when our places are so close that we don’t even need public transport to get home…?”

Aziraphale thinks he hears a subtle question in Crowley’s words, but he daren’t explore even the hope of that. Everything else this evening has been so lovely how can he be so greedy as to aspire to spend time _alone_ with Crowley in his flat, or the bookshop?

“We could just walk a bit?” Crowley says looking up at the sky and the few stars struggling past the light pollution. “Nice night. And we’ve got this if it gets chillier.” He holds up a bottle from the restaurant. A thick red. Expensive. Aziraphale smiles with glee, a smile that broadens as Crowley staggers a little towards him and offers him his arm.

“Lead on!” He trills, achingly aware of both Crowley’s sudden closeness, and that both of them probably need someone to lean on at the moment.

They walk in a very amiable way. A very meandering way. They’ve walked these streets – mostly apart – since about the eighth century or so. They’ve seen hovels become skyscrapers, dung heaps become mansions, gibbets become kids’ playgrounds. And now they’re lost.

“We cannnn’ttt beeee!” Whines Crowley dramatically.

“You have one of those modern phones don’t you-”

“This is my city… _our_ city!” Crowley glowers at the anonymous street they’re in, “The day I bloody need an app to find my way about-”

“All we need to do is find the river.”

“Yes! Of course! Brilliant!” Crowley beams down at him, and Aziraphale can’t help but smile back. “Have you seen it?”

“N-no,” Stutters the angel.

“Just a sec.” Crowley gently untangles his arm from Aziraphale’s and the angel tries not to miss his touch quite so much.

But he can’t stop himself gasping a little as Crowley’s wings unfurl in black resplendence. They put his own to shame really, he’s never been as good at sticking to regular self-grooming as his friend. He is awestruck for a moment, and it almost looks as though Crowley is enjoying the attention, a small proud smile on his thin lips. But then Aziraphale remembers where they are.

“My dear! Should you be-?”

“Black wings, dark night. No one about. No-one’ll see a bloody thing. Promise!” The words are a little thick again and Aziraphale remembers that they used to have a full bottle of red wine with them…

Crowley takes off like someone who has not done a lot of city-based flying while full of a quite nice merlot. His down strokes are strong, and they carry him up far quicker than he seems to expect. He also fails to look up, so they take him straight into a metal sign jutting out from one of the brick walls. The next stroke tilts his balance off and there is something a little reminiscent of a bottle rocket as he careers into first one wall of the street and then the other.

“Oh, my dear!” Cries out Aziraphale.

“No, no, I’m fine.” Comes a pained voice from above him. Black wings, black clothes… Crowley is a patch of darkness against the night sky as he rises. “Hey, I can see it! We’re not far!”

Crowley’s landing is rough and shakes a few black feathers out before he folds his wings away. “A perfect 6.0! And it’s another gold medal for the demon!” He cheers himself.

Aziraphale can’t help but laugh, and when Crowley takes his arm again they march with more purpose down towards the river.

“Ahhh, I know where we are now!” The angel says happily. They emerge from some service entrance alleyway out to a road and cross it to the promenade on the northern side of the Thames, where gas lamps have long since been updated for the electrical age even if the twisting black fishlike creatures holding them up are old familiar faces. The river laps at the bottom of the Embankment as Aziraphale leans over to take a look down at its inky blackness.

“I remember when this was all fields.” He sighs wistfully, “But I do quite like what they’ve done with the place.”

Crowley is quiet, and it makes Aziraphale look up at his friend. Although his eyes are, as always, hard to make out behind his sunglasses, he can tell the demon’s face is turned to a monument just a little further up. Two black sphinxes flank an angular obelisk covered in hieroglyphics.

“Ah, Cleopatra’s needle. I was here when Sir Wilson finally got it ferried up the Thames. 1870 something-”

“I was there when it was carved. Though, that was actually a long time before Cleo.”

Crowley moves away again, long legs taking him quickly up the steps to the nearest sphinx, so he can place a friendly hand on its flanks and stare up at the needle. Aziraphale joins him there, not sure what this morose turn in his friend means. Then he vaguely remembers something he’d read in the sixties, something written by that… complicated… poet, Ted. But he can’t quite bring it to mind, his head fuzzy from the wine.

“You’d have liked her, angel. Where were you back then?”

“Rome.”

“Ah yes, Rome. My side had a lot of plans for Rome.” He sounds… bitter.

“So did mine.” Admits Aziraphale, but Crowley doesn’t seem to be listening as he stares at the obelisk.

“I told them they should help her out. Told them there was much more fun to be had with an Egyptian empire than a Roman one in the next few centuries. But they wouldn’t.” Crowley sighs, and its all Aziraphale can do not to take his hand and try to comfort him.

“She was a friend?” There’s another question there underneath the words, and the first lines from Ted’s poem start to come back to him.

_The bright mirror I braved; the devil in it_

_Loved me like my soul; my soul_

_Now that I seek myself in a Serpent_

_My smile is fatal._

“Oh, she was _bold_.” Crowley smiles, sharp teeth gleaming in the lamplight. “She was a queen. She was defiant. And she was herself. I _liked_ that. And she liked the clever little snake the ‘gods’ had sent her to tangle about her shoulders and hiss insults about her courtiers in her ears.”

Aziraphale remembers finally. “They say she kissed a serpent… in the end. When Rome had her. She died rather than submit-”

Crowley scoffs. “Who says?! Who is _‘they’!?_  Do you mean your mate, Willie Shakespeare?! Nah, it wasn’t a kiss. It was a favour. She lived boldly, and at the end she died boldly too. But I _asked_ them to help her!”

His voice is thick again, and this time Aziraphale does take his hand, gently entangling their fingers together.

“Sorry, angel. I’ve gone all maudlin when we’re meant to be celebrating our survival, and the not-quite-the-end-of-the-world together, and-”

Aziraphale decides to live boldly. He kisses his friend.

Its probably not up there with the legendary kisses of Cleopatra and her Mark Anthony. Aziraphale’s not completely sure how these things work. And apparently, neither is Crowley, which might finally put to bed those rumours about him and the Egyptian queen. But somehow the two of them work out the rolling of lips and tongues into a dance that unfurls both their wings at the same time.

“Oh my!” Breathes Aziraphale when they part slightly. “Oh, my dear!”

Crowley’s smile is soft and somehow hungry at the same time. “Don’t worry, I’m only venomous when I want to be. You can kiss me quite safely.”

“Can I? Is it really safe?”

“Oh, angel!” Crowley near enough groans and pulls his friend closer against him. “Don’t stop living boldly just now we’ve started.”

But the next kiss is claimed by Aziraphale again before Crowley can even take another breath, and it has his demon humming. Although, if they go on like this, here, someone’s going to notice the black and the white wings at their shoulders, trembling slightly as they finally get to touch each other, running their hands over achingly familiar clothes.

He grabs at Crowley’s hand and leads him back across the road and down to where a locked garden square opens its gates for them. He’d comment on the irony of going back into the garden again, but he’s too busy drawing Crowley down to a bench where they can kiss and pet each other in the night’s shadows.

He’s so entranced that it takes a moment for him to realise that mixed up with the sweetness of the taste of Crowley’s lips and tongue is the bitterness of burnt salt. Aziraphale pulls back to see Crowley push away tears with the back of his hand, seemingly frustrated with himself.

“My dearest, sweetest, one. You don’t have to stop your tears!”

Crowley mutely shakes his head, so the angel lifts his glasses away from his face. There’s not much light here, but what little there is glimmers off of his wet serpent eyes. “Have I made you sad again?”

“Daft git.” Laughs Crowley, his lips turning downwards even as he does. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’ve wanted to do this for so long… Centuries. _Millenia_. But I was scared.”

“You?!” The thought of Crowley being scared pushes away his surprise at his confession that he’s felt this way for _millennia_. But only for a moment. “Wait, how long?!”

Crowley smiles, sniffing a bit still though. “You only bloody well gave the flaming sword away. What did you expect?”

Aziraphale clasps both of Crowley's hands in his, his own wings taking up their gentle trembling again. “Since _then_?”

“Since forever,” whispers his demon, his own wings curling about them as they shake, covering them in a thicker, comforting, shadow made of feathers, “Forever.”

They don’t take the night bus home, of course. There’s no falling asleep and missing their stop, no eating of kebabs, nor any vomiting in a purse.

Just two figures flying in front of the moon, hand in hand, dropping the occasional feather on London as they pass.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Aziraphale remembers is Cleopatra to the Asp by Ted Hughes: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/867729-cleopatra-to-the-asp-the-bright-mirror-i-braved-the


End file.
